


a truth whispered at night

by penhaligon



Category: Keys to the Kingdom - Garth Nix
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:54:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24244615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penhaligon/pseuds/penhaligon
Summary: Art comes face-to-face with someone he'd really rather avoid.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	a truth whispered at night

**Author's Note:**

> Fic titles are difficult, as always, so this one comes from [a song off of the Horizon Zero Dawn soundtrack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh8Nz5ZWWyA), which is also good mood music.

It took Arthur forty-five minutes to fall asleep.

Not that the New Architect clocked it intentionally. He knew it for a fact, in the same way he knew the timeline of the nearby star's increasing luminosity and what it would mean for the orbiting planets. He knew, too, with no Architect's insight required, just how much pride Arthur had been forced to swallow to make that first call.

That had been several weeks ago, after far too many nights spent restless and easily woken, and many spent with no sleep at all. Art hadn't intervened before that, even though he'd wanted to. It had been Arthur's call to make, and call he had, when the torment of being awake had become unbearable.

To sit here without his presence warping local space required concentration and constant attention paid to its minute fluctuations, but Art was getting the hang of it. Enough that he could sit with Arthur until Arthur fell asleep, though any time longer than a night posed a risk to this realm. Arthur, meanwhile, presumed that something was being done _to_ him, to help him fall asleep and stay asleep, and Art didn't correct the assumption. If Arthur knew that it was only a placebo, that he merely slept better when he wasn't alone, he might very well stop asking for help.

And so Art let it slide.

It wasn't a quirk of Arthur's unusual nature, either. Art had been keeping a close eye on that. No, the fact that Arthur hadn't landed himself in a hospital from months of sleep deprivation yet was a sign of that. The insomnia, on the other hand, was simply... expected, after everything.

Art sat at the end of the bed with a knee drawn up and a tablet balanced against it, and the thoughts in his head coalesced and swirled onto the screen when convenient. He didn't actually need this new and improved version of the Atlas. He knew its contents like he knew the timeline of the planet beneath him relative to its star. But it helped to bring order to a head full of universe -- most of the time, anyway.

He supposed that was why _she_ had kept a similar thing.

Tonight, it struggled to follow along, the screen static and glitchy as Art's thoughts jumped from one topic to another in an evasive dance. The Atlas was never able to keep up when he was trying to avoid certain thoughts, and finally, it simply gave up, the lights of its screen giving way to a glossy black reflection of Art's face.

He frowned at it. It did not come back online.

It would have if he wanted it to, and so he gave up, extending a hand and watching as the tablet collapsed into the smaller form of a digital watch and attached itself to a band on his wrist that had not been there a moment before.

Arthur was fine, sound asleep now and likely to stay that way, but Art glanced over at him anyway. As always, something twinged within him at the sight of his own young face. Even in sleep, a permanent furrow seemed to have etched itself between Arthur's eyes, and there was nothing Art could do to smooth it out, short of removing memories entirely.

He looked away.

Moonlight curled through a crack in the curtains, painting a stripe of light between the shadows on the floor, and Art watched it creep by, as slow as an age. This was only a solution in the short-term, of course. Arthur had asked Art for help reluctantly, and only because it was different when it was _him_ , so what would it take for him to tell Bob about the insomnia, that he could barely sleep anymore? They were the only ones left in the new house, with Eric off to college now too, and Arthur would do anything to protect his father from more stress. It meant dutifully seeing the counselor and lying at every session, and Art didn't need to eavesdrop to know that.

It was what he'd do. It was what he'd _told_ Arthur to do, in not so many words, and now he had to fix it.

And so he knew, too, that Bob would have to figure it out for himself, because if Arthur was informed that Art was providing no magical solution save for his presence, and that presence was key here, he would do the exact opposite of what Art wanted.

Art thought about their father very carefully and refrained from straying into memory. He could always give Bob a nudge in the right direction, on a night when Arthur was too stubborn to call. Art had already interfered far too much, but it had been necessary, to get them out of the ruins of their old town and into someplace new as quickly as possible. Still, he didn't care to meddle like that.

What would Bob think, if he knew? If he knew that Art had shaped his thoughts and wiped concepts like quarantine law and money out of the thoughts of others, to get their family and Leaf's family and the nice old lady down the road out of that hellhole and into new homes that should have been far too expensive?

With as many children as he had, Bob had become a master in the art of disappointment. It had always been a scarier possibility than any anger, effective at keeping a herd of children in line, and something deep within Art ached with the recollection.

He didn't mean to lose himself in memory, as moonlight carved its ponderous way through night's shadows.

But the door creaked.

Art reacted a second too slowly, caught up as he was in distant things, and so he reacted like a mortal, not an Architect. He stood up and spun around and pulled back, like a child caught reading under the covers in the dead of night, and the soft creak faded away as the door swung open.

Art had enough presence of mind to ensure that Arthur stayed asleep, deliberately this time, but he faltered as Bob's widening eyes met his. Art's thoughts were already scattered and troubled tonight, and so he couldn't pull himself together enough to disappear and leave no trace of himself in memory. He simply stared, too shocked by the sight of their father, only able to register that he hadn't watched himself enough, had instead let wandering regrets and memory become reality.

Bob pulled himself together much faster and lunged for the nearest heavy object, and he brandished a textbook as he advanced. "Who are you?" he demanded. "What are you doing here?"

Arthur didn't stir at all, even though Bob's voice was nearly a shout, and Bob's eyes ran frantically over the motionless boy, before his gaze snapped back to Art with intensity and anger redoubled, the textbook flourishing like he could do damage with it if he wanted to. "You've got ten seconds to get out of here before I call the police."

"He's fine," Art said mechanically, taking a few steps back. He needed to go. He needed to go and take every memory of himself with him, but though his feet moved, the rest of him didn't. "I'm not--"

Words were just as elusive as clear thought, and as Art spoke, something in Bob's panicked anger froze. He held the textbook ready, but he came to a stop and stared at Art. "Why do you--?" he asked, squinting against the darkness of the room. "You... do I know you?"

"No," Art said at once, and that aching thing in him twisted and gushed like a wound reopened, and the moonlight responded before he could stop it, flooding through the window even though there was a curtain in the way.

The textbook wavered. A furrow appeared between Bob's eyes, and he blinked a few times. "Why do you look like him?" he asked, dumbfounded, and his eyes once again traveled between Art and Arthur and back, like he was expecting one or the other to vanish. "... Are you..." The textbook wavered some more. "What is going on?"

"I--" Art said, and he didn't know why it was so hard to just _leave_. He would have to, in every sense of the word, because Bob couldn't be left fretting over finding a stranger in his son's room, but no amount of Art telling himself so actually moved his frozen feet. The thought of tampering with their father's thoughts yet again made his skin crawl, and perhaps that was what made something so stupid come out of his mouth afterwards. "I'm... related to Arthur?"

Nighttime always had an empty silence to it, and this one was particularly so. Not even a distant car could be heard, as Bob stared at Art, nonplussed. " _What?_ " Bob demanded, and he scowled, his shoulders tensing as he hefted the textbook once more, though the movement was uncertain. "What kind of game are you playing? You--" His mouth hung open, but nothing more followed, until he swallowed hard. His voice emerged fainter, as he stared and stared at Art. "You look... exactly the same..."

Art was twenty or so, and Arthur had only just turned thirteen, but Bob wasn't only seeing a future version of his son. He was seeing the thing in Art that kept twisting and aching, that _wanted_ to be recognized, and no amount of Art gritting his teeth and digging his heels in against it was enough to tame it entirely, it seemed. His predecessor, in all of her Atlas entries, had never mentioned how liable things were to respond to him even when he didn't want them to.

"Who are you?" Bob asked, softer now, like he had taken a single, hesitant step towards wrapping his head around what he was seeing.

He was seeing what Art wanted him to see, against all rationality: the truth. Truth was a difficult thing to voice nonetheless, and Art opened his mouth, then closed it.

As it was, he could leave now, or he could leave later.

The textbook slipped out of Bob's fingers and hit the floor with a thud, and still Arthur didn't wake. But Bob's eyes were fixed on Art, wide and disbelieving. "Arthur..." Bob murmured, and Art didn't mean to flinch. The moonlight rippled with it. "How... you..." Bob sucked in a deep, shaky breath. "Am I... dreaming?"

"Sort of," Art said dumbly. He didn't know when his back had hit the wall, but the curtains and the window frame pressed into his spine, and his shadow intersected with the light that spilled onto the floor.

It was strange, that galactic filaments bent to his will but his father made the room feel small.

Bob blinked like he was in a dream, like his eyes were heavy with sleep, because his mind was trying to make sense of something he'd never be able to. "Why are you, um... older?" he asked, just as dumbly.

"That's... a long story," Art said. Too long, too much, and he should have left already, but his back was glued to the window. "I..." His eyes flicked between Bob staring at him and Arthur still asleep on the bed, and he felt a rush of... something. Something to justify not going when he should have.

A dream. He could leave Bob with that much.

"Listen to me," Art said, and the words rang, sinking into the fabric of reality, shaping. "He needs you. He's too stubborn to tell you, but..." A dozen explanations filtered through his thoughts and were discarded. None of them felt adequate. "... He needs you."

In response, Bob stepped forward, and there was nowhere for Art to go, except sideways and out of this realm entirely. "What are you talking about?" Bob asked, that furrow returning between his eyes. It looked a lot like the one between Arthur's, even though they weren't related. Bob took dream logic in stride, it seemed, but that was to be expected, because he'd once confessed to Arthur -- to Art -- to _them_ that he'd gone on quite a few acid trips in his youth. The memory of laughing over that hit like a punch to the sternum. "What happened?"

If Art's chest had been capable of seizing like it used to, it would have. "You already know what happened," he said, and he didn't mean for it to leave him bitter. He didn't say it. He couldn't. It was his fault, and if Bob knew... if he looked at Art with _that_ in his eyes...

"No," Bob said, shaking his head. "There's something else. What aren't you telling me?"

"Nothing," Art said, like a petulant child with a badly hidden secret.

Bob frowned at him, exactly like he used to. "Arthur," he said, patient despite everything, and it very nearly unglued Art from whatever had him stuck here. "What's wrong?" Bob took another step forward, placating. "Are you okay?"

No. No, he was not, and Art needed to be gone already. Instead, he stood perfectly still in the cold flood of moonlight and didn't move, didn't resist, as Bob hugged him.

"Hey," Bob said, and his arms were tight and certain and warm, even though the situation could not make sense to him, even though Art's inherent control over the universe and lack of the same over his own wants were playing havoc with Bob's brain. Art didn't mean to melt into the embrace, but he did, and it was only then that he noticed that he and Bob were the same height. "It's going to be okay. I can't know what's wrong if you don't _tell me_ ," the stern in Bob's voice was rounded out with soft, teasing edges, "but we'll figure it out."

For a moment, Art wanted to give in to the question in the words. To let the man before him be _his_ father. But all he said into Bob's shoulder was, "I'm sorry."

It wasn't enough. The Arthur who was still asleep, and the new home in the new town, and the income that would never run out regardless of sales... none of it was enough.

"For what?" Bob asked, and he hugged Art a little tighter when Art didn't answer. "Don't tell me you're still doing that in college." Bob pulled back so that he could grin at Art, but his eyes were hazy and unfocused, seeing the truth but not all of it, seeing what Art wanted him to see, and Art felt something in him give at last at the sight. He didn't think he could stand it anymore. "You act like you've got to apologize for the whole world." Bob reached out to squeeze Art's shoulder. "You don't, you know."

Art let himself reach up and clasp the arm that held him, a fleeting reciprocation that ticked by like a stuttering clock as he held on to the moment for all that it was worth.

He couldn't stay. Already he'd lingered too long, and it wasn't just his errant will bending the nature of things around him. Local space was beginning to buckle around his presence, and no doubt Bob was feeling that too, though he would have no name or context for the strange things that would result in due time.

If Art lingered long enough to satisfy that aching thing within him, that which had not been excised along with Arthur, he wouldn't be the one paying for it.

"Tell him that," Art said, and he left the new house with its two occupants fast asleep in their beds.

* * *

Arthur felt good that morning, and that was saying a lot, when "good" was something that came and went on a whim, these days. Last night was probably the deepest sleep that he'd had in a while, and he had to admit, whatever Art was doing worked great.

He hadn't wanted to call, at first. Hadn't wanted to depend on the House for anything else, even though it was not the same House anymore. He knew, too, that it couldn't last, even after he'd been worn down to the point of wanting to touch the phone. He couldn't very well ask Art to watch over him every night for the rest of his life.

But for now... it was just nice to get some regular sleep.

He was halfway through breakfast when Bob came downstairs and entered the kitchen. His dad was usually a little spacey in the mornings, but today, Bob made a beeline for Arthur, and Arthur lost his hold on his spoon and choked on his corn flakes when Bob wrapped him in a hug that nearly lifted him off of the stool.

"Dad!" Arthur said and hacked out a single flake. "What are you-- get off!"

"Sorry," Bob said, steadying him on the stool as Arthur grabbed at the edge of the kitchen island to get his bearings. "Oh, now there I go. No, I'm not sorry. I love you."

"Um," Arthur said, leaning over to retrieve the spoon, "okay? I love you too?" He narrowed his eyes as he observed his dad, trying to place what was different. Sometimes Bob would get a little weird when he was in the middle of a project, though as far as Arthur knew, he hadn't been working on any for some time now. Maybe that was changing. "Did you sleep?"

"Mmm-hmm," Bob said, drifting around the island and pulling open a cabinet. "It was good."

That cleared nothing up, and Arthur retrieved a few stray corn flakes next, putting them on a napkin as he watched Bob gather components for his own breakfast. "Is everything okay?"

"Mmm-hmm," Bob said again, placing milk and a bowl down on the opposite end of the island. He leveled his gaze at Arthur. "And you can tell me, you know, if things aren't."

"What?" Arthur asked.

Bob reached for the box of corn flakes and popped it open. "If things aren't okay," he clarified, and he made sure to pause and give Arthur another long, pointed look over the box.

Arthur swallowed the instinct to pull away and gripped his spoon in a determined attempt at normalcy, shoving it back into his bowl. "I'm fine, Dad," he said, which was such a blatant lie that it was a wonder that Bob didn't see right through it.

Except that Bob was clearly seeing something, as he held the look for a moment longer before tipping the box over into his bowl. Arthur didn't know what had changed, but as Bob settled down to breakfast with him and struck up a cheery conversation as if nothing odd had just happened, Arthur had the strangest sense that it was not so easy to lie to his father as he had assumed, as of late.

**Author's Note:**

> You know it's not the weirdest trip that Bob has been on.


End file.
